How is a school's prestige defined?

Parents Forum
21

A school’s prestige is determined by how hard it is to get into. Period.

As Groucho says, we all want to belong to a club that would not have us as a member. That’s the definition of “exclusive” after all.

If anybody can get into a particular college, then by definition it can’t be prestigious. Because any schmo can go there.

Exclusivity is also why the following are prestigious – Augusta National, Goldman Sachs, the U.S. Senate, Cravath, Rhodes scholarships, SEAL Team Six. The most prestigious are those places that are so exclusive that we don’t even know they exist.

Rutgers was founded in 1766; Stanford 1885 – a relative newcomer. UT has an endowment the same size as Yale’s. Texas A&M is just a little bit behind. But Stanford and Yale are much more prestigious. Because they are more exclusive.

22

Thinking that Columbia is more prestigious than Cornell or Brown is just wack.

But then, it seems that a lot of people (especially those who haven’t been out in the world yet) equate admission rate with prestige these days.

They don’t realize that the real world doesn’t work that way. Cornell, UPenn, Columbia, Northwestern, and UChicago were all considered elite universities even back when their acceptance rates were above 40%.

And no, @northwesty, prestige isn’t determined just by acceptance rate, because many factors may cause acceptance rate to go up or down, but those may not actually have much effect on the quality of a university.

For instance, in the '80’s, Morningside Heights and Hyde Park were considered dangerous crime-ridden places to go to school and neither Columbia or the UofC were considered fun schools. These days, kids love to go to college in a big city–especially NYC or LA–and the UofC has run a very good marketing campaign. So there are many more marginal candidates applying to Columbia and the UofC these days, driving their acceptance rates down. Yet the quality of the education at those universities haven’t changed, and their best students are those who care deeply about the type of education those schools can provide and can take advantage of them. That type would have applied 30 years ago as well as now, so even the quality of the alums likely hasn’t changed.

23

Agree with everyone above! It seems that prestige is…undefinable!

It kind of reminds me of how that old Supreme Court Justice defined “pornography”…something like, “I know it when I see it.”

I guess a school is “prestigious” when someone says “Oooooh, wow!” when they hear you went there…

24

I really never cared about the rankings of schools and I still don’t care. I have some I thought were beautiful (UVA) and others I wouldn’t go to if they were free to me because I wouldn’t want to live in those areas or follow the rules at a highly religious school, for example. Some people grew up knowing they were going to Mich or LSU or USC because of family history or following sports. To them, those schools have the most prestige. If you look at enough rankings, sooner or later your school is going to be on top - best in biology, costs the most/least, most teachers in the state attended, best in the region/city/state.

Recently I was in a government office and everyone had gone to different law schools, including Harvard, a woman UF (#1 in her class), Wyoming, Wake Forest, Maryland, South Carolina. In fact, most of the higher level people had gone to the ‘less prestigious’ schools and the others worked for them. Don’t worry about prestige, worry about learning.

25

Like your post, preamble.

Let’s face it: the Ivies are good schools- and it’s plain old dumb to pretend Cornell or Brown (or some throw in Penn, for heaven’s sake) are lesser.

But this isn’t all about what Joe Q Public thinks. Your own dept matters more, the quality of the education you receive in your dept at whichever school (even a lower tier,) how you worked, the opportunities you have (and take advantage of) to be empowered and develop, practice what you learn, grow. That can happen in surprising places Joe Q doesn’t recognize- but employers and other smart folks do.

You want to hit young adulthood with more than just some glossy name on the diploma, hoping people will assume some of the fairy dust rubbed off on you.

26

“Exclusivity is also why the following are prestigious – Augusta National, Goldman Sachs, the U.S. Senate, Cravath, Rhodes scholarships, SEAL Team Six. The most prestigious are those places that are so exclusive that we don’t even know they exist.”

The average person doesn’t think Goldman Sachs is “prestigious,”. They don’t ooh and aah over hearing someone works there. It’s something they’ve vaguely heard of and that’s all. They have no idea if a job there is hard to get or not. Working for Google or Facebook would have way more cool points because they can envision what that person does and what the end product looks like.

People who work in or aspire to work in investment banking / finance think GS is prestigious (which, of course it is - IN THAT WORLD). You are confusing what is prestigious to those who care about a certain industry and prestigious to people at large.

27

PG is correct. The average person doesn’t think GS is “prestigious.” If anything the average person is more likely to have an overall negative impression of the banking industry based on unethical/illegal behavior that has been brought to their attention in the news, especially since the financial meltdown.

I had never heard of Cravath, so I looked it up. Really? A law firm? Every city has law firms that are “prestigious” within the community.

28

Cravath is very well known nationally within the small professional community it serves (corporate M&A law) and is legendary for hiring from Ivy law reviews. They do great work, and if I were a CFO they’d be on my short list for make or break deals. It’s also a horrible place to work with an up or out partnership culture that washes out well over 90% of its first year associates. And it’s not even the best paying firm in New York. (See “you can’t eat prestige,” supra.)

29

Moreover, not everyone is “impressed” that someone made it through such an up-and-out pecking order. I mean, good for them, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to think more highly of them than the person who said - screw it, this is ridiculous, I want to have a life, too. Different strokes.

30

Prestige is contextual. In the oil industry, an engineering degree from Texas A&M is going to command a lot more respect than an engineering degree from Harvard.

31

For better or worse, some of these schools were considered prestigious long before US News and World Report was even a magazine. Yale was founded in 1701, Harvard years before that. In 1978 when I applied to Yale from my working class neighborhood, I only did so because I had heard of it and it was considered a “top school”. Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Duke, UCLA, etc. were nationally known schools long before the era of the internet, web sites. Other schools were well known in their areas such as WashUSTL, Texas A&M, Northwestern. I am sure kids in these areas know much more about these schools that some far off school in the NE.

I know this didn’t answer the question about why they are considered prestigious. Maybe because of longevity they have just become part of academic folklore.

32

the nice thing about engineering is you may not need grad school to make good wages.
http://www.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/top-25-ranked-engineering-programs-with-the-best-return-on-investment/

33

The dictionary definition of “prestige” refers to “widespread” respect and admiration, so of course one has to figure out if that’s within a particular profession, region, or “tribe.” One’s man’s “prestigious” school is another man’s effete snob factory.

OP, rather than trying to identify an elusive target like THE “most prestigious school,” you should consider where you want to be in four years, both in terms of a degree, a potential profession, and possibly a region of the country where you’d like to live, and then work backwards from there, strongly considering the overall cost of your degree and seeking to avoid debt as much as possible. Few are as impressive as a gainfully employed twentysomething with no debts who is already saving for the future.

Believe me, most folks don’t know the substantive differences between UPenn and Penn State (and many think they’re one and the same). That’s true even here in the Philly suburbs. Protesting that UPenn is “in the Ivy League” will usually just result in an eye roll. Most folks use the term “Ivy” as a generic term for “prestigious” how ever THEY choose to define it.

34

I was raised by parents that went to a school very much like that @mfamum described, and prestige doesn’t mean too much to me except inordinate expense and snootiness. I have no doubt that the top schools, like Ivies, MIT, etc. provide fine education, and bravo to those that can attend such schools, but I always figured that a top school is not the sole answer to being successful.

35

“Believe me, most folks don’t know the substantive differences between UPenn and Penn State (and many think they’re one and the same). That’s true even here in the Philly suburbs.”

To me this is a benefit to Penn students. The strong students prefer to show and not tell. If you get a great education, people can tell by what you do. You don’t need to tell them to be impressed. If you went to Harvard or Yale, people will always ask about it. If you went to the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia, Brown or Cornell, occasionally someone is impressed, but most people will just shrug and drop the subject. Great. That is one less distraction. Do a good job. That is what matters.

36

Most people do base prestige on the mere fact that they’ve heard of a school. For example, my dad used to think that Pace was of the same caliber as NYU…

37

Yep. One person’s highly regarded dream college with the world’s best alumni network (USC) is another person’s school for unintellectual partying rich kids who couldn’t get in to their flagship public U (USC).

One person’s Global top 5 research university with a faculty and location that almost no other school can match (Cal) is to another person a giant cold bureacratic school full of CC transfers and Ivy-rejects (Cal).

One person’s elite Ivy with a tight powerful alumni network (Dartmouth) is to another person a small school that most people haven’t heard of and is a nonentity in his field (Dartmouth).

You can do this for almost any school.

38

@lbad96‌, outside of a few schools like Stern, Tisch, Courant, etc. that deservedly have a high reputation, I don’t see how that is terribly off the mark . . . .

39

I think university prestige has to do with a lot of different factors. Among them are age, history, quality of the professors, quality of the student body, exclusivity, resources provided by the university, selectivity, networking, and success of alumni, both financially and professionally. Sports can also be a factor for certain universities.

You can have an old university that doesn’t ooze prestige. For example, The College of William and Mary is the second oldest university in the U.S. It includes among its alumni 3 U.S. presidents and 16 signers of the declaration of independance. Yet, most in the U.S. probably haven’t heard of it, and even less are aware of its history.

On the other end of the spectrum we have a school like Stanford. Stanford’s only around 125 years old. However, Stanford’s alumni have been very successful financially, were involved in the development of Silicon valley, and comprise a large part of the ‘new money’ associated with the western U.S. (In contrast to the ‘old money’ associated with Ivy-league schools and eastern U.S…) So, this has helped it become an extremely prestigious university in a short amount of time. Other factors that have helped (like I illustrated above) include quality of professors, selectivity, networking, financial resources of the university, and so on.

I agree that the average person isn’t familiar with the most prestigious schools in the U.S. But that doesn’t mean that they can’t observe that X is a school where smart people go, that X is hard to get into, and that students who go to X have successful careers. Just because most people don’t have the intricate and detailed knowledge of CC posters doesn’t mean they’re oblivious.

To a lesser degree, I think the media play an important role in how we perceive universities. If professors appear from a small list of universities on TV and are hailed as experts, that improves the image of the universities that they’re affiliated with. And universities with more resources (i.e. money) are able to provide larger marketing budgets to improve their image and help shape their perception. (c.f. UCLA’s optimists campaign.)

As a final point, a central factor prestigious universities share is money. For example, many universities held as prestigious received large donations from billionaires in the past (Stanford, Chicago, Duke, Emory, etc.) and presents (Johns Hopkins, UCLA, etc.) Or, they were able to accumulate a lot of wealth through their long history (c.f. Most of the Ivy league.) And many state universities considered to be prestigious received extensive support from the state. One can see this in the UC System and in schools like UVa, Michigan, Texas, etc.

40

"PG is correct. The average person doesn’t think GS is “prestigious.” "

No, PG is totally wrong.

If you are worrying about “prestige” you are not interested in what the average Joe thinks. By that definition, the Kardashians would be the most prestigious family in America!! Does Joe 6 pack know who the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury or State is? Or the names of the current justices of the SCOTUS? Or what a Rhodes scholarship is?

If you are into “prestige” then you are concerned with what the elites know not the schmos. And when it comes to elites, it is ALL about exclusivity. Cravath is incredibly prestigious. GS is absolutely prestigious – it is silly to say otherwise.

Among private golf clubs, many folks would say that Augusta National is the sine qua non. Mostly because Augusta is well known for its famous televised Masters tournament every year. But cognoscenti for that kind of thing would list several places much higher – Cypress Point or Pine Valley or Shinnecock Hills. You may not have heard of any of those, but that does not take away from their prestige one bit. In fact, it enhances their prestige if anything.

I didn’t start this thread, but the OP asked what makes a college “prestigious”? It is obvious that college prestige equals selectivity. FYI, selectivity is not synonymous with acceptance rate.